


A Meticulous Manufacture

by NekoMida



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Gothic Romance, Humanity in the Inhuman, Implied Sexual Content, Post-Castlevania (Cartoon) Season 3, Psychological Horror Elements, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, gothic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:41:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25397824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoMida/pseuds/NekoMida
Summary: Hector counts his self-worth in the things he values--the night creatures, his freedom, and her.
Relationships: Hector/Lenore (Castlevania)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	A Meticulous Manufacture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kidlightnings (revolver)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolver/gifts).



> I wanted to go for a more Gothic-romance/Gothic-horror type feel with Hector and Lenore's relationship. There's very little of it actually shown in season 3, so I wanted to expand further past that, and use the known bits of Hector's past to build upon his persona.

Hector had never imagined himself in this position, beaten and locked into a cage. If there truly was a God, then perhaps he deserved this after squandering his gifts. He’d betrayed his master, and then had been dragged along like a cow for the market, the ungrateful bitch at the head of the macabre caravan seeing to it that he was just like any other human--less than dirt beneath her silken slippers, even as the blood and calluses grew on his own feet.

What he hadn’t expected was there to be someone else intrigued by something other than his gifts, more by his personality. He’d made many a mistake in his life, but trying to rip out Lenore’s throat topped the list, as he lay in his own filth, bloodied and bruised and aware of just how deeply seated his shame had become. But still, she visited him, day after day, bringing him food and taking him for strolls outside, explaining the quartet’s plans to him as if she really intended to make him more than just a slave.

Instead, he became a pet. Which was fine by him, despite the struggle in his head that he was just a slave again, his own freedom taken in a burst of passion and coercion. Hector had his own plans ahead of the vampire’s court, and he’d make sure that they would remember that it was he they depended on--especially Lenore. He’d taken to playing games with her, the casual flirting and touches maddening to the point that lips crashed upon hers, dragging her towards the large bed she’d insisted that he have in his ‘home’.

Gentleness was something that had long passed, especially between himself and Lenore; she could snap his bones with a flick of her delicate fingertips, but Hector had something she wanted, more than his services as a forgemaster. He had wit, intelligence, and humor, the things that Lenore craved. He might have been a pet, a slave, but at the end of the day, it was Lenore who came to him in the night, offering up gifts as a trade for his loyalty and his emotions. It reflected in her own actions--as she’d said before, diplomacy was a trade between two people, and she’d provided him with more trades than he’d imagined.

Beneath him she squirmed, Hector’s ears privy to the sounds she made, wondering if she would make the same sounds if she was staked beneath him, bound with blessed silver that would burn the flawless skin in red welts. If she would cry out the same if it was just them in the castle, without Carmilla, Striga, or Morana to worry about; would Lenore still stay his own even if there were no outside motivations? Sweat dripped down his skin, down old scars and across the damning red and black band that sunk into his finger. Loyal to her, indeed.

Outside, the night creatures swarmed, restless with emotion as Hector’s frustration and love poured out over his mistress, thumb swiping across the plump red lips and holding her neck tenderly in his hand, imagining snapping it beneath him, making her immobile as she had made him. Leathery wings snapped against the icy mists as their screams carried, flying about the castle, endless hunger surging forth into the night. Hector smiled, thrusting against Lenore’s hips, her nails raking against his head and down his shoulders.

He couldn’t tell if he loved her, or hated her.

Clearly, he could see the way that the night creatures had torn towns apart, a blissful experience in his opinion. He likened it to the orgasm that spilled over their thighs, listening to the heavy breaths of recovery in-between a few more stolen kisses; if there really were were such things as devils and a God, then this would be as close to heavenly as he got, riding the high of Hell upon his back and loins.

She left him there to rest, cleaning up after their torrid affair, hardly waiting a moment before she moved away from him. Her skin was cold, but her lips were warm, stained with the juice of blackberries that she’d eaten earlier; if it had been blood he’d have kissed her all the same. Immortals were all the same, hiding their humanity beneath their beastliness, the abundance or lack of emotion perplexing. Hector supposed that it was just their nature to be such mystifying forces of the world, though their magics and science seemed to suggest much otherwise. Human without the frailty or consequences of being human; powerful and strong with nothing but the sun and blessed silver to worry about.

Damn them, the supernatural. Though, he had to thank them for his gifts; without the ability to bring the dead back to life he was no better than any of the other livestock that the vampiress quartet sought to keep. He hated humanity for its scrutiny, for the very worth it laid upon his heart, so much so that Hector found himself beneath the castle once more, looking over the corpses brought in for his use. Half-eaten, half-torn remnants of livestock, so far removed from his own kind that they were nothing more than playthings for his enjoyment.

Each strike of the newly forged hammer, complete with coins taken from his homeland, brought forth a new creature, teeth sharp and glinting in the firelight. How fragile they were, these newborns, their loyalty to Hector intrinsic from the moment the hammer touched the components. Is this what it felt like to be God, creating the most beautiful things only to see them destroyed later on by the arrogance of others?

Hector didn’t know. But it filled his heart with a sense of empathy, enough that he coddled the newly forged creature within his arms, before looking over at the bodies piled high for his use. The vampiress quartet had been faithful to their promises, keeping him fed, clothed, housed, and other ameneties for immediate use, but Hector felt a void in his heart for one thing: to be loved in return.

That love manifested in stolen moments in the forge, or when Lenore’s berry-stained lips wrapped around his, skin pliant beneath his hands. Perhaps she had been right; he had needed to be commanded, or he was lost. She saw his sympathy towards creatures of the night and of unholy origins, and tucked him safely beneath her cloak, a warmth in the despairing ice-clad hills. There may have been stars above them, but for Hector, the moon was beneath him, her light shining through at every gentle touch.

Abuse, despair, depravity, unholy feelings and thoughts plagued his mind, all swirling into a vortex of self-loathing and doubt. Would she use him as cattle too, just another pawn in her game? Hector wasn’t sure, but he aimed to make himself useful so that she would not be able to discard him or discredit him so easily. Innocence was something easily lost, but admiration was earned, and fear was learned.

He should have feared her. Instead, he admired her, cunning and twisting him around her little finger so that he was blissfully lost in Lenore’s false warmth, the virginal blood in her cheeks no longer running in her veins and only there because of her need for sustenance. It was poetic justice, in his opinion, that something so powerful and destructive could look so frail and disheartened with a moment’s notice. Once he mastered his emotions and situation, Hector would make it up to her in devotionals.

Starting with getting rid of Carmilla, the plague that had brought him here in the first place. Anger swirled in his heart, the night creatures growing agitated and alerting their mistresses to the deviation of their master’s emotions. All he would have to do would be to get rid of the three other vampiresses, and chain Lenore with holy silver, and they could be together for all eternity. A lifetime was simply not enough, and his own nature betrayed him with each passing day, aging away faster and faster than he wished.

If only Dracula had given him the knowledge for that, given him the blood that would have kept him from becoming no better than dirt underneath their feet. How Hector wished he could go back, madness severing his hopes and dreams from the reality he lived in. He could have the little house that Lenore had procured for him, and take the knowledge of living forever from her, so they could stay together. A pet has no use without a master or mistress, and they die slowly in comparison.

He wanted to be the thorn in her side for as long as the sun rose above the hills in the mornings. Until she rotted away from the ages, the lovely lips that pressed against his skin flaccid and green with decay, fangs still left in her skull as the last bits of red silken hair clung to it. Hector wanted it badly enough that he’d steal it away from them, plan out their various demises slowly, and trap his lover with him. 

She’d be his. He was hers, after all; she’d stated as much. He was loyal to her. And that meant that no other would usurp his position as her pet.


End file.
